Countdown

4

The platinum white knuckles of Mark's right fist met Officer Larry Lickies' chin so fast and with so much force that he didn't have time to react, to slip his gun from its holster, to blow his whistle, to scream into his radio, to recognize the last second he'd ever be conscious. And once his head hit the concrete floor of the empty laundry room, his skull shattering in veins of a fracture, his brain dreaming about his wife at home alone with the two boys and a bottle of Jack Daniels, he was no more aware of the gun Mark forced into his anus and fired four times than he was of the two shanks jettisoned through his eyes until they reached the bloody hair on the back of his head, imparting a lightning strike of eternal bliss and nothingness to his chilling body.

3, 2

Donte and Delonte couldn't figure out what hurt more: the jagged flesh of their wrists which were tied together above their heads with the biting wire from a package of pork loins; the meat hooks in their backs which held them erect but had refused to let them die; or the holes in their groins where their penises had been before Mark sliced them off, taped them together end to end, and placed the largest ebony, two-headed dildo - a veritable black mamba - he'd ever seen into the freezer for good keeping, the blood issuing from their pelvises in geysers of frothy crimson, a slow, drawn-out procession toward certain death for two of the stupidest motherfuckers Mark had ever met in his life.

1

Her holster was empty, but she was not - handcuffed over the pipe she'd used so many times to restrain Mark, he now slipped both hands comfortably into her pleasure holes, one over top the other, and nibbled away at her uterus and rectum with his razored fingernails until his hands met and pulled back with a rending grunt, one black-blood hole replacing the two and forcing little girl whimpers through the long brown hair that wrapped around her head twice, muzzling her swollen mouth. As he untangled her hair from her tear-soaked face, he kicked the gun from under his heel toward her dangling hands, which gnawed fruitlessly at the air inches above the Beretta as he strangled her with her own locks, her breaths dissipating with each squeeze until her determined hands and large-breasted body fell limp into the dark hole of Death, which Mark was sure he'd never know.

Love Handle

A short woman as round as a medium-sized boulder and sporting a platinum-blonde, Dutch boy haircut too short for her fat face sat down behind the desk across from Mark and adjusted her glasses, which were too big for her quinty eyes. She traced one chubby finger across the top sheet of paper in front of her, then looked up at Officer Swallow, who stood guard behind Mark. She nodded once, twice and then turned her beady blue eyes to Mark. "Um," said Pam Randall, the warden of Cedarville State Prison, who was affectionately known to the inmates who hated her backstabbing personage as The Love Handle, "you have another 6 months before you are paroled, Mr. Dennison-"

"Please, call me Mark-"

"Okay, then, Mark, you have another 6 months before you are paroled, however-"

Mark leaned forward at his waist, which was chained to his hands, and flicked his head toward a picture on Randall's desk, which depicted a young mulatto-colored girl with slanted eyes. "That your daughter?"

Randall drew in a large volume of air. "Why do you ask that?"

"No reason. I just know a lot of guys in here who would love to tap that-"

"Mr. Dennison-"

"Mark, please-"

"Mark, if you're trying to get on my good side, it's not working." She nodded towards him once, twice, then continued: "Making threats against my daughter-"

"Whoa! Who's making threats? Do you think your daughter's pretty?"

Randall adjusted her mass, which hung from her bones like thawed meat from a hook, and straightened her tie. "Why, yes, I do. I think she is beautiful, the most beautiful girl in the world-"

"Well, then, wouldn't it make sense that men, even men here, would want to go out with her?"

Randall looked him in the eye as best she could through her two little, meaty slits of eyelashes. "I don't know what you're getting at, Mark, but it's not going to work-" She nodded once, twice-

"What's with all the nodding?"

"What do you mean?"

"After everything you say, you nod twice. As if you're playing a Jedi mind trick on somebody or something-"

"Oh, I didn't know I did that. Thank you for informing me of that...involuntary habit-"

"You're welcome-"

Randall leaned back in her chair, the creaking of which sounded like a baby being raped and murdered, and threw her hands softly behind her head. The stains on her arm pits were massive, stretching from her biceps to her ribs. She narrowed her eyes. "Okay, no more bullshit, Mark-"

"No more bullshit-"

"The state's attorney is willing to offer you early release for any information you may be able to give the state regarding its current investigation into the drug dealing of your friends Donte Washington and Delonte Jackson since they have been confined to Cedarville State Prison-"

"Donte and Delonte are drug dealers?"

"Come off it, Mark, you know damn well they are. And you also know that they're about to be implicated in the murder of Devin Licebringer-"

"What?" yelled Mark, his knuckles purpling as he grabbed the arms of the plastic chair that held him. "There's no way-"

"Yes, sir, their semen was found deep - very deep - inside Licebringer's rectum-"

"No way!"

"Yes-"

"I can't believe it. It must be a set up. Those two sweet guys would never do anything like that. And the drug dealing..." Mark shook his head. "I just don't believe it."

"Believe it." Randall put her elbows on the desk and leaned forward, her hot breath full of either garlic, rotten toes, or turd. "Assistant Warden Beering just demoted Officer Larry Lickies to the wash room this morning after we found that he too has been involved in drug dealing with Mr. Washington and Mr. Jackson. They've been pulling in thousands a week-"

"Thousands?" Mark could hear his heart in his throat.

"Yes."

"Well, why do you need me?"

"Officer Lickies is refusing to testify, and frankly, we've got nothing on him but our suspicions. Otherwise, we have nothing but flimsy circumstantial evidence-"

"But there must be others-"

"Yeah, and they're all pieces of shit, excuse my French. And the two main ones involved with them are gone: Licebringer's dead and Anderson's still on the run."

"But still. Me?"

"Yes, you. You're a model inmate. You've caused no trouble since you've been here, and you've got several credits for good behavior. If you agree to testify and help us convict these two, you'll be out next week."

Mark looked down into his lap. The veins in the backs of his hands thump thump thumped, small rivulets of anger pulsing against his knuckles. Donte. Delonte. Lickies. Licebringer. Anderson. He looked up at the obese warden. "I don't know anything about any drug dealing," he said.

Randall leaned back in her wobbly chair and glared at him. "You know, you're in here because of those two-"

"No, I'm not-"

"Yes, you are. I know your story. You took the fall for them so they wouldn't go to jail, then they ended up in here anyway." She began to nod but stopped. "What, are you afraid of them?"

It was Mark's turn to glare at her. "No," he laughed, "I'm not afraid of anyone. Can I go?" He nodded once, twice.

Barb'd

Gray and black curlicues of smoke tripped skyward, the billows thinning and forming odd, familiar shapes overhead: ducks, a platypus, drops of sperm, Danny’s cock. Mark smiled. Then rose quickly to his feet as his shoulder was suddenly weighted down—with Devin Licebringer’s penis. He turned and faced Devin and the greasy man’s mute, red-faced accomplice, Moe Jury. “What the fuck, dude?”

Devin cackled, one hand holding his prick, which snaked out through his open fly, the other occupied with a half-eaten hamburger. He wiggled the former at Mark. “I oughtta make you suck it right now, you little bitch-“

Mark looked at the limp thing, its head beet-red and scabbed, and grinned. He narrowed his eyes into Devin’s. “You don’t have to make me. I’ll suck it. And bite it off.”

Devin bristled and looked back at Joe, who looked away and pushed the last bit of his hamburger into his fat jowls. He glared at Mark. “You little bitch, you ain’t never had nothing this big-“

“Well, if your baby daughter could handle it-“

“Shut the fuck up-“ Devin took a step toward Mark, then jumped back, the gaze of his wet, beady eyes lingering over Mark’s shoulder.

“Problem?” said Donte, walking up and slapping Mark’s back.

“No,” said Mark, laughing. “Just this dude thinks he’s got the biggest dick at Cedarville State-“

Delonte stepped forward, looked around quickly, then pulled out his cock, which spilled out of his knuckly fist, as if it might stretch to the ground.

“Now that’s a dick,” said Mark, as Delonte slapped it against his other hand before slinking it back into his trousers.

“Whatever,” said Devin. He stuffed his shrinking pecker back into his prison-issued khakis. “What do you expect with a nigger dick-“

“Dude,” said Mark, jumping forward, his nose an inch from Devin’s slick mustache and snorting furious breaths, “you just wrote your obituary-“

“Fuck you.” Devin stepped back and pointed his hamburger at Mark. “You’re fucking lucky Jack Anderson escaped or we’d be reading your obituary-“

“Yeah, Jack fucked the little kids and you beat ‘em-“

“Lickies!” Devin looked away, with a start..

“Problem, gentlemen?” said Officer Lickies as he stepped between the adversaries.

“No, sir,” said Devin. He took a bite of his hamburger. “Fuck, these things are good-“

“Well, why don’t you go get yourself another one?” said Lickies, shooing Devin and Moe toward the grill.

“Yeah,” Mark yelled after the retreating men to the giggling delight of his friends, “make your last meal your best.”

Hamburger

Mark nodded to Officer Lickies as they passed each other and entered the freezer, snapping the door shut behind him. He looked to Donte, then to Delonte, then to the man they held naked and shivering between them. Two steps and he was over Jack's kneeling form, looking down into his watering eyes and chattering teeth.

"Vengeance is mine-"

"What did I do?"

"You lied to me-"

"About what?"

"About what you're in here for-"

"I told you the truth-"

Mark flicked his wrist to his left, then made his way to his right, to the cutlery rack, as Donte and Delonte heaved the fat man onto the stainless steel table. Selecting his favorite filet knife, which he had honed to an imperceptible razor sharpness the day before, he began to giggle as he approached the mottled body sprawled out before him on the same table on which he was used to cutting vegetables and fruits every afternoon. He placed the tip of the knife at the top of Jack's sternum-

"Okay, okay, I did it. I'm sorry. I fucked him, that little kid-"

"Too late, you fucking pig-" And Mark grabbed a frozen apple from the bin overhead, sliced it in two with a twist of his wrist, and shoved one half into Jack's resisting mouth until the man's choking subsided and it disappeared into his chubby cheeks. The other half he gave to Donte, who casually took a bite.

Without another thought, he traced a careful line from Jack's neck to his orange pubic hair with the knife, the subcutaneous fat no hindrance, his eyes widening as he watched the writhing torso open itself up in a smooth trail of congealing blood, a river freezing before it had a chance to flow. Then he re-traced the rivulet, pressing harder, Jack's muffled moans rhythmic and calming him further as he reached inside the man's belly and inched his fingers up to the man's driving heart, the incision around his wrist tight and hot like a virgin cunt around a swollen cock.

"I think I've got a boner," said Mark, as he squeezed the heart until his thumb and fingers met in a warm lake of goo, Jack's body rising for a brief second, then slamming lifeless onto the table, bits of apple spilling from between his lips with his last pants. "He's done."

Mark removed his hand and wiped it on Jack's hairy, bloated belly. Then set about taking him apart, piece by piece, sliver by sliver, with the assortment of knives, saws, and cleavers on the rack behind. As he removed each part, dictating his actions to his friends like a surgeon, he gave it to Donte, who put it through the industrial, motorized meat grinder over and over, bone, cartilage, tendon, muscle, and organ a mish mash of powdery, fleshy Play-doh.

As they finished up - wiping and disinfecting the table and tools, forming perfect circular patties with their uncovered palms - the freezer door popped open. Ned Bongo, the short, bald, humorless Italian who ran the kitchen - and was serving consecutive life sentences for eating his two children in church - entered and looked from Mark to the pan of meat patties with his bulging eyes.

"Very good," said Ed, nodding. "The barbecue tomorrow is going to be a runaway success!"

Typical

7:30am - Wake Up

7:31am - Think about Danny

7:45am - Brush teeth, shit, wipe 100 times (or more)

8:00am - Breakfast (2 scrambled eggs, 1 slice scrapple, 1 pancake, 1 cup orange juice)

8:30am - Read, Write

10:00am - Kitchen duty (for lunch)

10:15am - Prepare trays of processed chicken, turkey, beef slices (remove from refrigerator and place in oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit)

10:45am - Prepare fruit and vegetable cups (remove from freezer and place in refrigerator to thaw)

11:15am - Prepare dessert (remove from refrigerator and arrange in pans on buffet)

11:45am - Go to freezer and jerk off in fruit juice concentrate

12:00 Noon - Prepare fruit juice (from concentrate)

12:30pm - Serve first round of lunches

1:00pm - Serve second round of lunches

1:30pm - Serve third round of lunches

1:45pm - Go to freezer and jerk off into fruit and vegetable cups, set aside for Devin Licebringer and his friend Moe Jury on fourth round

2:00pm - Serve fourth round of lunches, eat lunch

2:30pm - Clean up (wash and dry trays, pans, cups, and put back in proper place)

3:00pm - Two hours in the yard (hang out with Donte and Delonte, sell and smoke drugs, threaten other inmates, make plans with Officer Lickies, who's always talking to Donte and Delonte, and Officer Swallow)

5:00pm - Showers (jerk off or get/give head or fuck somebody or get fucked by somebody, eat cum)

5:30pm - Nap

6:30pm - Dinner (2 slices processed chicken, 1 cup fruit and vegetables, 1 cup fruit juice)

7:00pm - Go to Janitor's Closet with Officer Swallow

7:30pm - Read, write

9:00pm - Lights out

9:01pm - Jerk off, eat the cum

9:29pm - Think about Danny

9:30pm - Sleep

Swallow

"314!"

The steel door slides open crickety crack, and Officer Carol Swallow steps in, boots clickety clack. Uniform the same brown and yellow of all the other guards but narrow at the waist and wide at the hips. Cuffs biting on his slender, scarred wrists as she hooks them to a chain around his waist. Then down to one knee, incarcerating his ankles, her face at his crotch.

A tug and he follows her, hooting in his ears from his fellow inmates, all wrongly convicted, all right where they belong. Passes by Donte and Delonte and Officer Lickies outside, nods to his colleague and to her charge, his feet scraping along the gunmetal gray paint of the concrete floor. Then down another row of catcalls, then another. Through a door heavier than both of them. A right, then a left, encroaching darkness, a slim wooden door marked 'Janitor', inside a closet of dirt and chemicals.

His arms burn, his cock swells when another set of cuffs hooks him to a pipe overhead, rust sprinkling the spikes of his hair. Her hands at his waist, her face almost cute enough to be a boy's or a model's in his crotch, biting at his hard-on through the gray cotton, teeth raking zipper teeth. Until she frees it. And takes all of him, cock, balls, in a gulp, her mouth like an inside-out sweaty sock, smooth, soaked.

Her thick tongue around his taut veins, a sponge of blood, then a vacuum twirling stronger his balls sucked through his urethra, the sweat under his arms trailing trails down his torso, coagulating a diagonal in the triangle of soft hair squashed against her nose. His hips tighten, pump, he releases in squirts at the back of her throat. And might fall down the hole behind the last drops if she doesn't stop slurping-

Zipped up. Uncuffed. Dragged back. The steel rods re-form in front of him, panting, smiling on his back in his lonely bunk, her mother's form nothing but a trace of shadow. It was better than the last time.

"314!"

TEN